The Dark Knight Endures
by Tori-bot
Summary: Nine months have passed, and to the people of Gotham City, the Batman is no more. In his absence, crime seeps into the streets once again, and the police have neither the manpower or the resources to handle the onslaught of anarchy. But somewhere deep in the shadows, the keeper of Bruce Wayne's legacy is waiting. This is the story of Gotham's new guardian. Post-TDKR.
1. Proving Ground, Part 1

Batman is dead, and John Blake has risen as the unchallenged successor to Bruce Wayne's legacy. Nine months have passed since the attempt to destroy Gotham, and the city has struggled forward without a protector, reeling in the wake of Talia al Ghūl's path of destruction. In the absence of its greatest saviour, the dark underside of Gotham City has begun to surface once again, and the decimated police force is powerless to overcome the wave of anarchy that sweeps through the streets. But while Jonathan Crane instigates a full-fledged attack on the weak and unstable people of Gotham, the new Caped Crusader has been locked away beneath the former Wayne Manor, honing himself, waiting. From the shadows, the Batman emerges...

_**THE DARK KNIGHT ENDURES**_

**Part One: **_Proving Ground_

James Gordon stood alone, silent, his lips clamped around a cigarette, hands in his pockets. Weary eyes surveyed the boroughs of Gotham over the top of his glasses. Above him was a blanket of grey cloud. The sun's attempts to break through the sheet, while futile, resulted in the sky being a brilliant silver that managed to illuminate the city. A chill nipped at Gordon's exposed face, seeping into every tired wrinkle and furrowed line.

"What the hell you doin' here, Jim?"

Gordon turned on his feet to see Detective Bullock staring back at him, his expression unreadable. Removing the cigarette from his mouth and exhaling, Gordon turned back around and slumped over the edge of the GCPD building, arms folded, launching his cigarette into the air and down towards the abyss. He sighed quietly.

"You can't keep comin' up here, Jim. You don't work here no more."

Gordon's head swayed. "Well, I have nothing better to do. If I'm going to waste my time, I might as well do it out in the fresh air. Fresh as it gets, anyway."

Bullock's heavy-set frame sidled over the rooftop next to his former boss. "Look, I know what you're feelin' right now, we've all been feelin' it, but you gotta let it go sometime, right?" His thick Brooklyn drawl elicited no response. "I mean... everybody downstairs has been worryin' about ya, since you... well, we don't even know what happened. I mean, we don't even know if you quit or you got fired or what..."

"I figured I should probably get A over with before B had the chance to rear its head. Now what do you want, Harvey?" Gordon snapped. "Free goddamn country, and I practically lived on this spot for ten years anyway."

"I don't know... you wanna grab a beer?" Bullock already knew what kind of reaction his half-hearted suggestion would be met with.

Gordon snorted. "No, I don't wanna grab a beer. I do enough of that at home."

An uncomfortable silence filled the space between them.

"Listen, Jim, if you ever wanna..."

"I want to what, Detective?" His eyes drifted past Bullock's wide self, over to a familiar friend, tucked almost out of view, covered in dust: a searchlight, stylised image of a Chiroptera emblazoned boldly across its surface. The sight of it brought a twinge to the back of Gordon's mind.

Bullock's beady eyes followed Gordon's line of vision, and both men found themselves staring at the Signal, both losing themselves in the past.

"I thought you smashed that thing?"

"I found it, months ago. Got a package in the mail, led me right to it."

Gordon remembered that day well. His hand had caressed the cold metal of the bat, and his heart had filled with hope for the first time in years. He had felt twenty years younger that day. But with each passing month, that shining ray had been reduced to a dim lightbulb, then to a glimmer, until it resembled the sky above: dull, forgotten, the light taking a backseat to the gloom. Now he wasn't sure if the light was even there anymore. And he doubted it ever would be again.

As the disgraced former police commissioner of Gotham City mused on the empty void that was his life, several miles away - and more than a few feet beneath - a shirtless young man in green sweatpants performed his two-hundredth crunch of the day with his legs wrapped around an iron bar, arms folded, exertion dripping out of his hair.

It was almost time. But not just yet.

* * *

A/N: So, yeah... hi. Looks like I've had this account for like five years now, but now I actually have something to post! Yay! Well, that's not true, I've done one or two other fanfics, I've just posted them elsewhere... but I digress. This is pretty much my "Batman 4". Like, if Warner Bros. called me up one day (a man can dream) and said "We want you to pick up where Chris Nolan left off. Have at it, sonny-Jim!", this would be it. Except this is in prose form, because screenplays can be kinda dry to read.

Basically, how this fic is gonna be structured is like so: there will be multiple stand-alone storylines under the banner title of "The Dark Knight Endures", with each story being broken down into bite-size chunks. If you're familiar with the original series of Doctor Who or the way comic book story arcs are structured, it's pretty much the same idea. The individual story arcs will be divided primarily by antagonists, e.g. once a villian is captured or otherwise out of the way and the plotline revolving around them is wrapped up, a new story will begin with its own situations and sub-parts. For example, the above is the first part of the first storyline, and (spoilers! But not really because it's in the intro) the antagonist is Scarecrow. I'm doing it this way for a number of reasons:

1. I see "The Dark Knight Endures" as being one great big whole at the end of the day, so the individual stories that make up TDKE are a way of making it more manageable as a piece of work. It's not like the separate story arcs are completely closed-off from each other - there will be quite a bit of continuity between them - so I thought that dividing it up in this way would make the journey less daunting for both me and the reader (which, hopefully, is you).

2. I have a whole bunch of scenarios, ideas, plans, and characters for the new Dark Knight to tackle, so giving each individual storyline its own subtitle helps to identify when a particular "chapter" is over and a new one begins, despite it all being the ongoing saga of Robin John Blake. Just think of each storyline as being one episode of a TV series split into chunks, or one issue of a comic book storyline that will eventually be collected in a trade paperback.

3. I'm lazy, so this is a great way to update without having to do all of a story arc at once.

So, to sum up, each chapter is an issue, each Part is a graphic novel, and it's all The Dark Knight Endures. And so it begins...


	2. Proving Ground, Part 2

Gotham City was a disease. He had the cure.

Crouched over a trio of briefcases filled with the instruments of his will, Dr. Jonathan Crane listened to the chunks of trash and broken bottles batter against the bay. The water was dirty, unclean, filled with impurity. That its surface showed the reflection of the city was, to him, very appropriate.

Dr. Crane was sat huddled in a security lookout building high above Gotham Harbor, the ocean spreading for miles beneath him. The entrance to the small structure was appropriately booby-trapped. The inside of the lookout was little more than a square with barely enough room to house one man, the only interior feature being a wooden panel built into the wall. Dr. Crane had taken to using it as a desk, and it was on this desk that the cases were laid out. He didn't care about the size of the room. In spite of how it reminded him of the constantly-shrinking white walls of his cell, Dr. Crane had more important things to concern himself with. Security and isolation took precedent over comfort.

Doctor Crane. The phrase felt foreign to him now. And yet it was still accurate: no one had ever bothered to revoke his doctorate, strike him off the list of Gotham's licensed psychologists.

He had been holed up here for almost a month now. The better part of a year had been spent flitting from decrepit hideout to decrepit hideout, avoiding detection, perfecting his craft. The last thing on his mind was being carted back to Arkham, even if it meant living off of stolen pizza and fast food. No one would suspect Jonathan Crane, distinguished doctor turned harbinger of fear and one-time terrorist mastermind, of robbing a Burger King.

Crane ran a hand through matted, unkempt hair. Flecks of grey had started to appear recently, and his chin was covered in silver stubble. His glasses were cracked, almost bent out of shape. The gavel that had served him so well during Gotham's reckoning nine months ago still adorned his makeshift desk. Of all the things he could have kept from that time of panic and destruction, of course it had to be something utterly worthless. He had heard through the grapevine that his former patient Mr. Zsasz had made off with a couple of priceless artifacts from the museum.

Crane had nothing to show for living through Gotham's occupation. Abandoning his mangy business suit after a few months, he was currently clothed in a repurposed Arkham straitjacket and cloaked in rags. He had even been forced to fashion himself a new mask of late, from whatever materials he could find, an uninviting mixture of fabrics and threads. The patchwork one Crane had grown fond of so many years ago was long-gone, torn from him by the Batman, now probably rotting away in the sewers.

The Batman...

It was not long after Crane had been forced to vacate his makeshift kingdom in the panic that the rumours began: the Batman was dead. But Crane knew something that those who whispered and wheedled did not. He knew the Batman. And Batman would not succumb to something as petty and human as death. No, he was still out there, somewhere. Hiding. They were both survivors. If Crane could survive the chaos and violence of the masked man's onslaught, so could Batman. There was no doubt in his mind. The Batman would come back. He just had to be ready.

Adjusting his glasses, the Scarecrow inched his face ever closer to his new project, blood-stained syringe in hand.


	3. Proving Ground, Part 3

High above the streets, in the centre of Gotham City, stood Wayne Enterprises. The hub of all business exploits in Gotham. From the pavement, one would perhaps be able to make out a dark speck blemishing the turquoise roof of the building. This speck was garbed in black combat gear, countless buckles and holsters scattered across its frame.

He stood with a single-minded solidarity, unmoving, his face a portrait of resolve. This high up, the temperature was considerably lower than at ground level. He did not notice the cold. He had other things on his mind.

As he craned his head over the edge of the blue-green rooftop, Robin John Blake once again experienced a terrifying rush of adrenaline. He wouldn't be of any use until that feeling left him.

His father had always told him not to look down. True, he didn't have this kind of altitude in mind, but still, it was good advice. But he needed to transcend childish comforts. He had to become much more than a child scared of heights.

Blake had been experiencing something of an existential crisis for the past nine months – though, perhaps for the first time in history, not about himself. About the Dark Knight. Yet as his frequent trips through the slums of Gotham reminded him, the city needed a Batman. He couldn't walk more than a few blocks without hearing the faint ringing of a burglar alarm or a terrified screech or a smattering of gunfire.

Bruce Wayne was alive; he knew that much. He did not know how he did it, or why he had abandoned the people of Gotham, but Blake was not particularly interested in finding out. If there was one thing the man deserved, it was peace.

He had spent most of his last nine months in the cave – it was the best training ground he could have ever asked for. Wayne had left everything in order, down to the last detail. It had taken him dozens of weeks to familiarise himself with the Dark Knight's equipment – batarangs, grapples of all shapes and sizes, explosive gel, the Batpod. There were enough facilities prepared for Blake to get himself into shape, eat, sleep; really, there was little reason for him to leave. Except the idea of living underground amongst a throng of bats 24/7. Once or twice he had thought of doing some job-hunting, but Wayne had taken care of that too. With all of the money left to him, Blake would probably never need to do an honest day's work ever again.

One of the many things Wayne had set in place before his disappearing act was contact with Lucius Fox. Blake had not yet met him in person, but he understood that at this very moment, an arsenal of toys was being constructed on his behalf. Unfortunately, these things take time.

Blake had ventured out into the world in a cape and cowl only twice, undetected, just to get a feel for maneuvering the night in a bat-inspired costume. When he had found the Batcave, there were two outfits left behind: one was a sturdy, solid piece of armour, the other made up of many separate plates and pieces. Blake had elected to test-drive the earlier, more restrictive design. He determined that the decreased mobility and lack of neck separation was made up for by the increased protection from knives and other weapons. That, and the fitting. While he and Wayne were a similar height, Blake was not as bulky as his predecessor, and he had found that the individual pieces that made up the second Batsuit caused quite a bit of noise during movement. What good was being able to turn his head if his prey could hear him approaching? If he was going to get stabbed, he might as well protect himself as much as possible and not afford his enemies a head-start.

Of course, there was a reason that the first suit did not last long – in addition to the restrictive design, it was almost unbearably hot in there and cumbersome to wear. But Blake did not have long to wait until he would finally be in possession of one of his own, custom-fitted and decked-out to his specifications, as relayed to Mr. Fox via coded letters. He hoped that the third time would be the charm, and with Fox's previous efforts serving as a trial-and-error jumping-off point, he had faith that his suit would be free of downsides. Good thing, too, since he needed all the help he could get. Might as well start with a perfected shell for his body.

Wiping sweat from his brow with a gloved hand, Blake's thoughts returned to the top of the skyscraper. His rappel line had been attached to the edge of the building for some time now. The wire extruding from his waist was waiting to be unfurled, tugging impatiently at his side.

The city of Gotham needed the Batman. An all-powerful creature of the night to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, a fearless symbol of hope capable of disabling a wave of corruption with one well-placed smoke pellet.

Inhaling sharply, Blake launched himself off the top of the Wayne Enterprises building and plunged down towards Hell with nothing but a near-invisible piece of wiring separating life from death.

For now, it would have to make do with him.


End file.
